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“Yeah, so why does the town think there was a girl in the house before the fire?” I ask Marge, who clearly is the one I need to talk to. Jerry has turned away, shaking his head at his wife and her need to talk. I’m sure he thinks I’m encouraging her, but the tank full of gas and many snacks I’d bought had secured his mouth shut. I’m a paying customer, and he won’t make a scene while I am. Fuck, for Carina, I’d buy this entire gas station if I have to.
“Oh, because after the fireman came, Sissy Louise over there across the street from them, well, she saw a girl stumbling out of the house! I don’t know how the firemen would’ve missed her after they got the fire out. You’d have thought they would’ve cleared the building.”
“You’d have thought,” I murmur.
Marge says nothing else, shakes her head, the way older women do when they’re appalled by something.
“Anyone have theories on who the girl was?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Didn’t see anyone with burns in town, either. I looked for weeks.”
“Why’d you say you wanted to know?” Jerry asks, and I can tell I’ve about overstayed my welcome.
I smile politely. “Just passing through and seen the house, is all.”
“Mhm. Well, maybe you ought to be moving along now, hmm?” Jerry asks, as if he could make me. As if my Colt revolver in the back of my jeans wouldn’t ensure I get all the answers I want out of old Marge.
But I decide that this being the town my Carina grew up in, I don’t want to make waves. Even though none of these fucks see her like I do. None of them paid her any attention. None of them fucking cared. Marge had probably passed Carina covered in bandages and was none the wiser. But one chance meeting in the market with her, and I could see nothing else. Blinded by her like she’s my own personal sun to revolve around.
The fact that she laid in a burning building for hours, hurt and afraid makes me want to find Emery Stanner and slice his fucking flesh until he tells me what he did to her, until he admits it. But I know that this needs to be strategic. You don’t fuck with a grizzly bear without a plan first. You don’t fuck with any monster without disabling it first, and that’s what I need to do. I need to cripple the monster that is Stanner Enterprises. I need to pull Emery Stanner down a peg, to my level, humbling him at my feet to kick.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Emery
“Come on, Stanner, take a bump. It won’t kill you to stop being the pretty boy your father wants you to be,” Wes taunts once we’re back inside.
I’ve convinced him to leave the girl alone, and she’s now lying on the couch, covered up and sleeping off whatever the dumb fucks had slipped into her drink.
I look at Conner as he wipes lingering cocaine from his nose, and my heart races. I know it’s stupid to try and conform to these types, but no matter how popular I am, I never feel like I fit in anywhere. I still feel like an outlier. I drop to my knees where Wes and Declan have lined up perfect lines of cocaine with their IGA cards. Covering one nostril, I lean down and sniff it deeply into my nose. Burning, stinging pain sears through my sinuses, causing my eyes to water. I wipe my nose as I lift myself onto the couch near Conner.
Declan laughs, slapping his leg. “Fuck, I didn’t think he’d do it. Wait until Sean hears that Stanner took a bump!”
Sean is Conner’s older brother. He’s the worst sort of person. A drug dealer, alpha asshole that can’t stay off the streets. It didn’t stop Conner and I from looking up to him as we grew up, though. Conner would do anything to make himself cool in Sean’s eyes. It’s likely what these fucks think they’re cool for. Because Sean Whitfield pays them any attention. And it’s not because they’re on his radar. It’s because they’re funding him by continuing to buy his product.
My heart’s pounding and sweat beads on my brow. I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack and pass out, but there’s something else in the high that’s barreling through me. Arousal. My cock stiffens, and my heart lurches.
“Fuck, was that mixed with something?” I ask, standing to hide the obvious erection.
“Just a little X, no big deal, bro. Calm down,” Wes says, grabbing for my arm as I race past him and up the stairs looking for a bathroom. There isn’t a door that opens, so I make my way back down, turning left at the stairs. A shove into a room, finally finding a bathroom and sighing thankfully, slamming the door behind me.
Splashing cold water on my face, I try to breathe through the whirring need in my body to be touched, and to touch someone. The laced cocaine amplifies the feeling.
‘What the fuck have I done?’
The shower curtain rustles behind me, and I turn, shaking my head as the movement causes my world to shift.
“Who the fuck is in there?” I call out, instantly angry for some reason. It’s like the drugs have amped up everything I feel, even if it’s only the smallest amount of an emotion.
No one answers, so I swing the curtain back, metal hooks raking across the metal rod, causing a God-awful sound.
In the tub is a girl. She’s a little dirty, a little banged up, but her eyes are the most alluring thing I’ve ever seen. Blue eyes have always been my favorites, but these? These are a contrast to her blonde, matted hair because of the oils that haven’t been washed from it. They almost glow up at me.
She’s blinking sleep out of her eyes as alarm floods her. Pushing back a sleeping bag she was inside of, she stands, covering herself as the chill of the abandoned house hits her skin.
“Why are you here?” she squeaks.
I realize she hasn’t asked who I am.
